MARCUS CAVAROLI
WITH one-year contracts de rigueur in the League of Ireland and players constantly being forced to move around, it can be difficult for them to form a close bond with the clubs they represent.
However, eight of the Drogheda United starting team on Friday night also featured in the play-off two seasons ago, and this close-knit group were genuinely distraught when the result didn’t go their way in Finn Park.
None more so than Sean Brennan, the 32-year-old midfielder and captain for the night, who grew up just down the road from United Park and has now spent five seasons with his home-town club.
The Rathmullen native, who finished the season as the Drogs’ top scorer, with 13 goals in 26 appearances, lay on the turf in despair at the final whistle, and afterwards he had tears welling up in his eyes as he reflected on the night’s events.
‘It’s a tough place to come, but we tried our best and it’s horrible [to lose], but we just weren’t good enough and that’s how it is at the minute,’ he began.
Not even the sympathetic words of manager Tim Clancy in the dressing-room after the final whistle could console Brennan.
‘Tim just told us we’ve had a really good season, that we were up there for the whole season and we played really good football throughout the year,’ Brennan went on.
‘If you look at some of our squad, they’re young lads, they’re kids, so they’ll come back stronger and hopefully next year they’ll give it a good push again.’
The skipper acknowledged that missed chances came back to haunt Drogheda, perhaps most crucially the one that Gareth McCaffrey put wide, moments before Harps struck for the lead goal.
‘That was probably a big turning point in the game because they probably went up and scored less than a minute later and it was a goal out of nothing,’ Brennan agreed.
‘We’d started the game quite well and I thought we were really positive and looked quite sharp and the goal obviously set us back.
‘Gareth is probably not firing with his match sharpness. If he had a few more minutes in his legs in the last few weeks it’s bread and butter to him. That’s what he does - he’s a finisher - and it didn’t go in and we paid the price.’
The big question now is whether Clancy can keep most of the squad together, and whether the manager himself might be tempted by other jobs that have become available - notably at Shelbourne.
‘Hopefully Tim can keep them all together,’ Brennan responded.
‘They’re a good young bunch, they’re very tight-knit. There’s a great togetherness and we do everything together. We train hard and we push each other and hopefully he can keep a hold of most of them, but it’ll be difficult for Tim because I’m sure there’ll be plenty of people looking for these young lads.
‘Of course we want Tim to stay, but there’s big jobs out there and Tim’s had a really, really good first season, so I’m sure some of the big clubs will be looking to bring Tim in.’
The interview ended with a question about Brennan’s own contribution. Was it a source of comfort that he’d managed to finish top scorer with what was probably his highest goal tally in a season? It was that query that touched a nerve and he wept: ‘It doesn’t mean anything now. It’s probably the best season I’ve had, but it’s no consolation.’